Breaking Dawn

Edward, Bella’s husband who’s lived as a 17-year-old vampire for over a century, is described as shockingly beautiful, with pale, cold skin and golden eyes. His vampire ability allows him to read people’s minds, although he has never been able to see into Bella’s thoughts because of her latent shielding ability. He is part of the Cullen vampire coven, a group of vampires that live together outside Forks, Washington. They refuse to consume human blood and live together, an unusual practice among the vampire population.

One of Edward’s primary character traits is his love and devotion to Bella. In the previous novels, he attempted to suppress his attraction to Bella because he feared she wasn’t safe with him as her blood has an especially appetizing scent. However, over the course of the series, Meyer establishes that Bella and Edward are soulmates—utilizing a classic romance trope. Bella’s safety and well-being are always the most important thing to Edward. After they have sex for the first time, he’s visibly distraught at the bruises his vampiric strength causes despite Bella’s insistence that she’s completely fine. After Bella becomes pregnant with Renesmee, Edward is initially willing to abort the baby if it jeopardizes Bella’s health in any way. Despite the enmity that exists between the vampires and Jacob and his pack, Edward enlists Jacob’s help, offering to allow Jacob to impregnate Bella so that she can become a mother without needing to become a vampire. Meyer frames Edward’s willingness to ally with Jacob as a sign of both his devotion to Bella and his latent self-hatred. Throughout the series, Edward functions as a kind of mirror for Bella compelling her to see herself as she truly is rather than allowing her self-perception to be dictated by her insecurities and self-doubt.

Jacob is a point-of-view character and protagonist in Breaking Dawn in the second section of the text, narrating Bella’s pregnancy with Renesmee from his perspective. He’s a 17-year-old werewolf, having transitioned in New Moon at the age of 16. Meyer describes him as extremely tall and muscular, largely because of his wolf genetics. Hailing from a long line of shapeshifters, Jacob is the rightful Alpha to the Quileute pack. The Quileute shapeshifting abilities are triggered in response to the proximity of vampires— a way to protect themselves and their community.

Jacob’s arc sees him moving from a lone wolf to a community leader. Despite his lineage and rightful claim as the Alpha of the pack, he initially refuses a leadership role. He struggles with the weight of the responsibility, insistent that he is not born to lead and would rather have Sam in charge of the wolves. The threats Sam makes against Bella during her pregnancy, act as catalysts for Jacob’s personal growth. He breaks away from Sam’s pack and assumes the role of Alpha on his own. Even once he’s formed his own pack, Jacob's growth into a leader remains ongoing—he still resists forcing or commanding those who follow him. He refuses to use his Alpha voice to issue commands that Seth or Leah would be forced to obey, preferring to let them make their own decisions.

Over the course of his arc, Jacob learns to embrace his own form of leadership, taking charge in the pack’s mission to protect the Cullens and in the fight against the Volturi. Embracing his natural ability to lead helps Jacob broker peace between his new pack and Sam’s, allowing the two packs to work together toward a common goal. The wolves’ loyalty to Jacob and commitment to protecting Renesmee and those connected with her after the imprinting evidence the text’s thematic emphasis on The Importance of Family and Friendship.

Jacob’s decision to break away from the pack is fueled by his devotion to Bella, which he grows to understand as an entirely self-focused motivator when he imprints on Renesmee. Throughout the series, Jacob believes firmly that he would be a better romantic partner to Bella than Edward—an obsession that contributes to his refusal to lead the wolf pack. When he finds out that Bella and Edward are engaged, he isolates himself alone in the woods at the conclusion of Eclipse. His connection to Bella during her pregnancy and eventual imprinting on Renesmee allows him to embrace a broader perspective—one that creates room for empathy and compassion, even for those he previously viewed as enemies. When he believes that Bella has died, he’s prepared to kill Rosalie and Renesmee in his anger. After the imprinting, he gains a new perspective that allows him to see the world and his place in it more clearly. He understands what Sam has tried to explain to him, that the primary reason for the pack’s existence isn’t to destroy the vampires but to protect the people of Forks. From that perspective, Jacob sees the importance of an alliance with the Cullen’s.

Rosalie, Edward’s sister, is a member of the Cullen vampire coven. Meyer describes her as blonde, beautiful, and vengeful, carrying deep rage for the ways in which she was abused as a human. She strongly disagrees with Bella’s decision to give up her humanity and become a vampire because she resents that she never got to make that choice for herself. In this way, Rosalie serves as a foil to Bella throughout the first two sections of the text. In Breaking Dawn, Bella’s journey provides a kind of redemption for Rosalie’s past hurt—one that eventually creates a bond between them that begins to heal the animosity that’s existed in their relationship from the beginning of the series.

Bella's change allows Rosalie to see a different type of transition to an immortal life than her own. Learning to accept and respect Bella’s choices even if she herself would’ve chosen differently, underscores the text’s thematic exploration of Overcoming Prejudice and Ignorance. Renesmee’s birth serves as the catalyst for a deeper understanding between herself and Bella while becoming a second mother figure to her niece—an experience her own human death and vampire transformation denied her—allows her to begin to heal from her past trauma.

The Volturi are an ancient ruling coven of vampires in the world of the Twilight saga. Their three leaders—Aro, Casius, and Marcus—are among the oldest, strongest, most powerful vampires in existence. Centuries before, the Italian vampires overthrew their Romanian counterparts, gaining control of the vampire world and enforcing their primary law: secrecy. The Volturi serve as the primary antagonists in Breaking Dawn, coming to Forks to kill Renesmee, destroy the Cullen coven, and reify their own dominance in the vampire world.

The Volturi, led by Aro, represent a complex group of villains motivated by the pursuit of personal power. Although they claim they are trying to uphold the law for the greater good, Edward and Eleazar explain to Bella that their primary motivation is to force the Cullens to assimilate into their coven, giving them access to Edward and Alice’s formidable gifts. As Edward tells her, “when Aro want[s] something in particular, [it’s] never long before evidence turn[s] up proving that this coven or that coven [has] committed some unpardonable crime, [then] Aro [will] grant a pardon to one member [with] the gift Aro ha[s] admired” (602). Meyer emphasizes that because vampires in this world are naturally predatory, they rarely live together and prefer solitude. As a result, the power of the Volturi has gone unchecked for centuries. Even after they back away from the Cullens, there is still uncertainty about whether Bella and Edward will be left alone, with the threat of the Volturi always looming over them.